


Past and Present Tense

by physically_affectionate



Series: Clirk Universe [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, clirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:19:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/physically_affectionate/pseuds/physically_affectionate





	Past and Present Tense

When the Doctor claims that his targeting scanners aren’t very accurate, Clara gives him a look that has him jumping backwards into the centre console, trying hard to keep to his previous words. When he fails to keep to that, he tries to explain that it’s hard to navigate through time and space onto a ship in warp, Clara gives him a pointed look and explains that if a human in the 23rd century can do it (abet only in space, but with a transporter dematerialising them) then so can he.

The Doctor has no response for this.

Clara drags two lounge chairs out from the depths of the TARDIS, and when they land, she gets the Doctor to extend an invisibility shield outside the door, for a few meters. They can’t hold it for very long, but they can hold it for long enough that Clara can go unnoticed for the whole ceremony; that doesn’t mean that she’s going to miss a single second of it. 

Before they land, she riffled through the TARDIS closet to find the nicest dress she can, did her hair, and when she leaves the closet, she ignores the Doctor’s barely concealed gasp. She’s not going to deny to herself why she chose the dress she was wearing - a strapless white tight dress that sticks to her figure as it touches the ground, covered by a layer of violet lace wrapped around her torso and upper arms. She’s not going to deny that she wanted this to be her wedding, and that the violet lace is only there to make the white dress not a white dress.

The Doctor is smart enough to not actually say anything though.

He just pushes her chair in under her and takes the accompanying one as they watch Jim Kirk’s wedding.

Both Jim and his soon-to-be husband have opted to not wear their Starfleet uniforms, which Clara is glad of. She knows that they’re not always going to stay in Starfleet, especially after the events of 2265 and the subsequent child, and the wedding photos don’t need to be tainted with an insignia one of them is going to detest. 

Instead, they’re both wearing white fitted suits with coloured shirts, and Jim has a 5 o’clock shadow along his face. Now that he’s older than Clara remembers, the beard doesn’t make him look young. It makes him look old. It highlights his tired eyes.

Clara wonders if his eyes would have looked as old if they did if she’d stayed. 

The invisibility shield lasts through the ceremony, and through half of the reception, despite the Doctor’s protests and grumbles. He’s probably just grumbling to try and take her mind (and eyes) off Jim, which would show some true affection on his behalf, except for the fact that this is the last time Clara is going to let herself dwell on a love in the past. 

It’s obvious that Leonard McCoy loves Jim more than she ever could. He chose to stay. 

When the newlyweds are having their first dance, Clara lets herself cry as she watches how Jim’s hands rest on Leo like a promise. How they’re familiar with what they’re touching.

She’s jealous. 

Leonard’s hands are touching what should be hers, and god, does it make her angry.

The second dance is of Leonard and a younger girl - presumably Joanna, if the history books are to be believed - and a few other couples float onto the dance floor. Jim though, he isn’t dancing; there seems to be no mother or father of his here, no sister or brother. And Jim’s family was something Clara had always refused to look up; if Jim wanted her to know, Jim would let her know.

He’s moving through the crowd, making small talk, thanking people for coming, even though everybody there is a member of his crew, or they came on the same shuttle from the nearest star base for the occasion. So really those people are there because they want to be, but Jim’s still being polite, and quickly she notices that he’s making his way to the back corner of the room; where the TARDIS was located.

Picking a flute off a tray, once he gets to the end, he settles into an empty chair, taking a deep breath. He’s so close - less than a meter away - and Clara can head him breathe. She can hear him exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide, and her universe boils down to this point. She could reach out and touch him, change the course of this universe. She could talk to him, ask him to leave with her, and there’s a chance, however small, that he would. 

He’s muttering to himself, and he’s got a dopy alcohol induced smile on his lips, and in the corner of the room, he’s not trying to hide his sexual staring at Leonard. He sings “I’m gettin’ laid tooonight” and it makes Clara smile, even if it brings tears to her eyes. At least his heart mended like hers was never able.

But she knows that Jim isn’t her purpose in life. Her’s is to do with the Doctor, with saving him, and she’s always known that. It was that feeling that made her leave Jim in the first place. So she doesn’t do anything. Instead, she makes her way up to the barrier, the only thing separating him from her, and places her hand on it. She breathes in, and she breathes out.

And then she lets go. 

She steps back from the shield, not giving herself the temptation, at the same time that Joanna comes and pulls Jim into the dancing while saying something about “father-daughter dance now that I’m actually your daughter”.

Clara feels like she can breathe again, now that Jim’s gone, without catching the smell of his aftershave.

She doesn’t let herself follow him with her eyes, although when he’s sufficiently occupied with Joanna and the dance floor is packed, she makes her move.

Clara has spent enough time with the Doctor to know how to navigate a crowd without drawing attention to herself, how to blend in, so as she moves through the room, nobody seems to question her presence. She makes her way to Leonard, just as he’s about to leave the floor. 

“Dance with me?” she asks, but she’s already pushed herself into his arms, and she knows he’s enough of a Southern gentlemen that he won’t deny her. So he acquiesce, and wraps his arm loosely around her waist.

“Do I know you darlin’?” he asks, and Clara’s not going to try and conceal her identity from him. She’s just tired. 

“My name is Clara. Clara Oswin Oswald.”

Their bodies stop moving as Leonard appears to register his words. “You’re real then? I’d always thought you were just a complex hallucination from his teenage years. You weren’t in any databases anywhere, and I’m a doctor, so I have access to nearly every database.”

She rests her head on his shoulder. He’s a bit taller than her, and although his body is foreign, it is not uncomfortable to lay her head against. It may not be the one she wants, but it is still one. It’s as close as she’s ever going to get. Leonard’s suit has a lingering smell of Jim and -

“He’s happy, isn’t he?” she asks, and for a second Leonard looks almost offended by her statement. 

Leonard seems to dwell on his answer. “He’s as happy as he can be, I think. Although darlin’, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here.”

“Why?”

“Because if I have to fight for him against you, I’m gonna lose, and I don’t want that. He’s happy, let him be happy. Don’t be a bastard and fuck this up for him.”

Clara considers this. She very seriously considers this. She wonders if Jim would pick her over Leo. She wonders if Jim loved her more than she loves Leo. She wonders if Jim still loves her, or if he loved her. 

It’s so hard for her to tell when present tense and past tense don’t matter because time is your playground. 

But on the star date of Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy’s wedding, Clara feels as if it’s past tense. Jim’s love is no longer her own. 

“My love is past tense. It has been past tense since I left him in a bar with a broken nose. You’re the one who got him through the academy, who fixed him up, who CMO’ed his ship. Your love is present tense, so you need not worry Doctor.”

Leo doesn’t have anything to reply to that with, so they dance in an amiable silence for the rest of the song now. And when the song ends, it morphs into an old classic. Well, an old classic for this time anyway.

“It’s time to begin, isn’t it? / I get a little bit bigger, but then I’ll admit / I’m just the same as I was / This road never looked so lonely / This house doesn’t burn down slowly / To ashes, to ashes.”

It’s time for Clara now. It’s time for her to visit Trenzalore and fulfil her purpose which she knows will kill her, to save the universe and space and time. And she’ll save the universe, oh yes. But she won’t save it for them; she’ll save it for James Tiberius Kirk.


End file.
